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Another Car and Snow Adventure * An excerpt from McCavity A Real-life Mystery Cat * Times I Didn't Die: Dating a Coworker Times I Didn't Die: Gigs in Bars Times I Didn't Die: More Dreams Times I Didn't Die: Photographs Times I Didn't Die: The Dog Dream | Times I Didn't DieMicro-memoirs from newsletters
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This story was featured in the June 2023 Newsletter.
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A Car and Snow AdventureMy husband and I drove from Denver to Chicago in our new '72 Super Beetle in April. We got caught in a blizzard. Visibility: zero. Speed: barely above zero. I read the map to tell him how to turn the wheel (ex. 2 o'clock) in how many 10ths of a mile. We could tell semis were passing us by the noise. A gust of wind slid us sideways off the road. We heard sounds like explosions ahead of us. In a break in the wind, we saw a huge pileup of cars and trucks and the bottom of the exit ramp. We crept a few feet on the shoulder to the ramp and up as far as we could. A car facing the wrong way blocked our access to a crossroad in a rural area outside a city. We stayed in the car until we spotted a gas station in another break in the wind. I learned how early settlers could get lost walking from the house to the barn. We locked the car and held hands to keep from losing each other while we trudged through the deep snow and swirling bitter wind. The station had three heated bays for repair work. We spent the night sitting on tires, eating vending machine food, and drinking sample wines that a salesman paid a local snowmobiler to "rescue" from his damaged car along with the stranded people they were rescuing. Some truckers went out with the snowmobile club and brought in crates of oranges and apples for us. Later, the National Guard brought personnel carriers and took most of the people to an auditorium where they would have beds and hot food. We opted to stay in the garage—we got there early so we had tires. And wine. And no idea when they'd bring us back the next day. Our car wasn't damaged in the pileup. We could get on the road early. In the morning under a sunny sky, we reached our car. The other car was gone, but ours wouldn't start: the engine compartment was packed with snow. The wind even blew snow in through the seal around the back window. When we finally got the car started and the windows scraped and defrosted, we still couldn't drive away. The tires froze to the road. We'd befriended a college boy trying to get back to school at the end of Spring break. He pushed the car to help break it free and helped dig us out when we got stuck on the surface roads. Every underpass on the highway was clogged with incoming cars. To avoid the massive pile-ups under the bridges, we drove down the up ramps on the wrong side of the road and up the down ramps, crossing the grass separating the east- and west-bound lanes at the bottom and crossing on the bridges at the top. The only mishap was mine. My boots were in the trunk of the car. My husband pulled over to the side of the road to let me out. Why? Habit for a highway-engineer. My first step out of the car was a long one, down the embankment toward the ramp we'd just driven up. I stopped by hitting a rock with my ankle and climbed up. My husband and the hitchhiker linked hands to reach me and helped pull me up the slick almost-vertical last few feet. I settled in the back seat with snow boots and a swelling ankle. The hitchhiker got promoted to the front passenger seat. We dropped him off in Iowa and headed to my husband's family near Chicago. When we'd pushed the car to free the tires, the layer of frozen rubber had peeled off the tire and stayed on the road. The tires made thumping noises and small bumps for the rest of the trip. |
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This story was featured on my personal
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Another Car and Snow Adventure *I was driving home from St. Louis and stopped to get gas. The old man in the grubby station in a small Kansas town along I70 told me that the highwy would be shut down around Burlington, CO, and I should get a room in Goodland, just east of the state line. I took his advice and got the last motel room. And, I called my ex-husband from a pay phone. “I need a favor. I'm stuck in Goodland, and I'm supposed to be at work by 8 am.” At that time, my ex-husband was The Traffic Engineer for the CO Highway Department (aka CDOT). “What do you want me to do?” “Send a snowplow so I can follow it back to Denver.” I wasn't completely serious, but it was worth a shot. That was around 30 years ago. I think he's still laughing. ÷ § ÷ And that was all I wrote on my Facebook post. I wanted it to be humorous. But, there's more to the story. I had two collies, Spirit and Kody, with me. If I hadn't taken that old-timer's advice, I might have tried to go on to Burlington, the next town. And been turned back to find no motel room. I might have tried to go on, in the blizzard, to towns east of Goodland. Or, I might have tried to spend the night in my small Acura Integra with two dogs and the engine running. When the snow piled up, as it did that night, the exhaust would have gotten into the car. My dogs and I might have died for lack of oxygen. If I didn't run the engine for heat, my dogs and I might have frozen to death. |
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This story was featured in the September - October 2024 Newsletter.
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Drugs and Doctors1. Drugs. It's not what you think. When I was a child, measles, mumps, and chickenpox didn't have vaccines. After my bout with mumps, my neck stayed swollen. My parents' best friends were a doctor and his wife. This doctor, self-proclaimed the “best Internist in Denver,” dismissed the swelling in my throat. He said I was a hypochondriac and prescribed iodized salt. I slept about four and half hours every night, could eat as much of anything I wanted, and was skinny. The Energizer Bunny couldn't keep up with me. In my teens, I also suffered from horrible monthly cramps. He gave me a prescription for phenobarbital. I went off to college with a huge bottle of pills and an unlimited number of refills. A couple of boys in the rooming house wanted to partner with me to sell the pills. “No! I needed those pills.” * I was given codeine by my dentist after he extracted two wisdom teeth. I threw up. My fiance called the dentist who pronounced me “allergic to codeine” told me to swish my mouth with peroxide and take aspirin. My fiance and his best friend joined me in my two-room apartment. They fed McCavity the Mystery Cat, drowned out my moans with my records, and popped all the codeine. A great weekend. For them. * Two decades later, I came down with a really bad cold and told my doctor that I was allergic to codeine. He listened to my chest and diagnosed bronchitis—he didn't want to call it pneumonia because I “only had a few rales.” He gave me a prescription which I filled on the way home. I took the pills as prescribed, called the coworker I was dating to let him know I was home, and fell asleep. He called later to see how I was doing, but I didn't answer. He drove to my house and used his key to let himself in. He knew about shock and saved my life. The next day, I called the doctor. “I went into shock. A friend found me and saved my life.” “It's synthetic codeine. I thought it would be okay.” 2. Where's the Doctor? Early in my marriage, I had an accident and cut my finger. It wouldn't stop bleeding. There was no hospital nearby, so I knocked on the door to a nearby cottage with a sign that displayed a doctor's name. He told me to lie on an examination table and put a pressure bandage on my finger, told me to keep my hand elevated until the bleeding stopped, and closed the door behind him. Two hours later, my finger still bleeding, I called out for the doctor or nurse. No one answered. Dripping blood, I explored the empty rooms. The open sign in the window faced me. The other side said, “Gone to lunch.” Smudging my blood trail, I went back to the room for my purse. I met the doctor on the steps of the cottage. “I forgot you were here. Looks like the bandage didn't work. Let's get that artery stitched up.” Hand on my arm, ignoring the blood on the floor, he led me to a different room and put two stitches in the joint of my finger. I still have a neuroma where I'd cut the nerve, but it's not as sensitive as it used to be. My next door neighbor was a paramedic. He told me to come to the firehouse if anything like that ever happened again. * My husband took me to an emergency room once after twelve hours of severe flu or food poisoning. After giving me shot after useless shot, the nurse shot me up with morphine and sent me home with my husband. I woke up thirty hours later and was able to stand and walk. I even went to the door to welcome my husband home from graduate school. But the door got stuck on my foot. I shut the door, moved my foot, and opened the door again. That was enough exercise. I went back to sleep again until the next day. I needed a bath. When I took off my socks I discovered that I'd ripped the nail off my big toe when the door got stuck on my foot. I still didn't feel it. I didn't go through morphine withdrawal for another day. A month later, I got a bill from the doctor I never saw. * Near the end of my marriage, I got an infection from an IUD. Doctor #1 prescribed penicillin, but he refused to remove the IUD. The pills didn't help. After a month, I found another gynecologist. After another month of penicillin, Dr. #2 grudgingly removed the IUD and put me on more rounds of penicillin, the drug of choice. He could not be accused of malpractice for prescribing the drug of choice. I got too sick to drive to work. The morning I collapsed trying to get out of bed, I crawled to the telephone. Dr. #2 was not on-call. Dr. #3 listened to my story, read my history, and phoned in a different prescription to the nearby pharmacy. My estranged husband brought my prescription. Imagine an antibiotic on steroids. Three days later, I was back at work, like I'd never been sick. And I had a new gynecologist. I hoped to meet him some day. * Two decades later, I had abdominal surgery to remove a benign (isn't that a beautiful word?) softball-size tumor. Sunday, forty-eight hours after I was released from the hospital, I was throwing up water and passing out. My boyfriend took care of me. He called my doctor. The on-call doctor told him to wait until morning and make an appointment. My brother-in-law, a doctor, called from Phoenix. I couldn't stay awake long enough to talk to him. He told my boyfriend to take me to the Emergency Room asap. I have only a few flashes of memory: my brother-in-law's voice saying hello, being helped into a car outside my house, lying on the x-ray table in the E.R., asking my boyfriend, "When I die, will you take care of my dogs?" until he said, “yes.” I said, "It's okay then," and blinked. When I opened my eyes, I was in a hospital room. I blinked again, and it was night time. I blinked again, and it was morning and my boy friend was back. Another blink, another night. The fever broke. I woke up, dressed, and asked the nurse, "Can I go home now?" “Do you know what day it is?” “Um, Tuesday?” “Thursday.” I'd lost four days. And hadn't met my doctor. But, I learned why I'd needed phenobarbital when I was a teenager: I'd had endometriosis. And the tumor protected one ovary. |
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This story was featured in the February 2023 Newsletter. If you want a micro-memoir delivered to your email once a month,
Do you have a story that would work in the form of a list? |
Living the DreamI worked for a company that was downsizing. They offered a year’s salary to anyone willing to quit. A friend had the opportunity to buy back her horse ranch in the mountains from her ex-husband. She never had to put the worm on the hook. I wriggled onto the bank and climbed the line. Too late, I heard the old joke: How do you get a million dollars ranching? Start with five million. My childhood dream of living on a horse ranch in the mountains didn’t last. But I learned a lot.
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Read more about Have you ever had been near a sniper? | McCavity, A Real-life Mystery Cat, an excerpt * My fiance helped me move out of my apartment. We loaded up both cars and hauled everything I owned to his apartment. After dinner, we went back for McCavity and one last check of the apartment. A helicopter was circling the area, and I heard some popping noises. A police officer said, "This area is closed off." I couldn't leave my cat alone in the apartment; he needed to be fed. I needed to take my last few belongings and turn in my key. I parked a few blocks away, because several streets were blocked off, and we cut through spaces between buildings and down alleys to reach the back of my building. I found a few things I'd missed, which I stuffed in my purse, and picked up McCavity. My fiance grabbed the litter box and gave the key to my landlord. We walked up the street toward the police officer who had turned us away. He pointed down the street. “Get out of sight. Now! That helicopter is searching for a sniper on the roof of one of the buildings. Someone's up there, shooting at people walking by.” I worried more about losing my grip on McCavity. |
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This story was featured in the November 2022 Newsletter. If you want a micro-memoir delivered to your email once a month,
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The Car that Saved My LifeI bought this Ford Fiesta from a friend in August, 1982. It was a safe, economical, and reliable car for the entire time I owned it, with one exception. One winter night, I drove to that friend' house for dinner. When I left to go home, the car wouldn't start. We popped the hood, and saw no reason for the problem. I tried starting it again. No luck. We went into the house to get out of the cold, talked about potential causes (none likely, except—maybe—the cold) and symptoms I might have missed (none). "I'll give it one more try." The car started. I drove home via the divided highway that ran from Boulder to northwest Denver. When I topped the hill and looked toward Broomfield, I saw a flash of light and heard a loud explosion. By the time I reached Broomfield, the police had the southbound lanes closed and rerouted us onto surface streets with no explanation. It took longer to get home. I found a message on my answering machine from my friend. "Are you okay? Call me as soon as you get this." I did. He told me about the explosion: two trains hit head-on under the bridges that carried the highway across the railroad tracks. Both bridges burned. We did the math. If my car had started when I wanted to leave, I would have been on the eastbound bridge when the trains collided. I drove that car everywhere for several more years. It never failed to start again. |
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Have you had a close call driving?
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Times I Didn't Die (Cars)1. My husband and I sold our TR-3 and bought a Lotus 7A. It was a race car built from a kit: aluminum tubes and panels. Fenders, to make it street legal, were aluminum, bolted on. Leather-like window panels with plexiglass to see through could be mounted on the doors. A removable roof over Our Lotus was factory built in England, bright yellow, and right hand drive. Someone imported it to the US and brought it to Denver. The doors opened, but it was easier to step over them into the car, and slide down to low cushions set on the floor. Our straight legs fit into narrow spaces along the drive shaft. One day, my husband drove us for a ride. I sat in the passenger seat on the left. On a major street near our house, a long-nose semi pulled up behind us. The light was long. The semi driver inched forward. The light didn't change. The truck inched forward. Again. Wide-eyed, my husband turned toward me. “The driver forgot we're here. Stand up.” I popped my seat belt, whirled, and shot up in front of the driver, waving my arms and bouncing up and down on the seat. His eyes like white golf balls popped out of his pale face. He slammed on the brakes and mouthed, “I'm sorry.” My husband said, “Good job. Now, sit down. The light's green.”
I watched the bigger cars going around the banked turns with their wheels at an odd angle. My husband explained about "opposite lock" (turning the opposite direction from the curve which causes the car to slide) and "drifting" (a theoretically-controlled slide in the direction you want to go). “You do the entire curve under full-power, and when you come out of the curve, you straighten the wheel, still under full power.” It's the fastest way to drive through a banked corner. I understood the theory and knew my car. I tried it. Opposite lock into a drift was easy. And a rush. Things I didn't think about: Even in a helmet, my head slammed into the side of the roof of my car. I heard bells. I saw spots. And, I got lucky. Afterward, someone said my husband stood on the other side of that wall and shouted, "She's gonna hit the wall," before he followed the others who ran to safety. A friend told me that I missed the concrete chute wall (the entrance onto the oval track) by about an inch. I got the car back under control in the extra space the chute provided. A muscle-car driver offered to let me try it again in his car. “No, thanks. I think I learned my lesson.” Sometimes I wondered what driving a car like that would have felt like. |
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This story was featured in the July 2024 Newsletter.
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Have you known anyone who has been arrested? |
Times I Didn't Die: Dating a Coworker1. I joined a social club that offered a variety of experiences, from sitting in bars and telling only the punchlines to jokes, giving presentations of talks about whatever expertise a member wanted to share, and offering activities outside of the monthly meeting. I signed up for a self-defense class on Sunday afternoons. One of the tricks I learned was to use my keys gripped between my fingers to defend myself. My coworker, who had done a lot of covert work during the war in Viet Nam, and I used to work late and go out for dinner around 11 pm. I'd sling my purse over my outside shoulder so it wouldn't hit him while we walked, holding hands. One night, walking back through the empty parking garage, I heard footsteps getting louder. Fast. I dropped his hand, gripped my keys in my hand, whirled around, and crouched. The young man had his hand out, reaching for my purse. He hit the brakes, almost tipped over onto his face, and back-peddled. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. Don't hurt me.” He whirled around and raced away. My coworker did nothing. I stood up and glared at him. “Why didn't you protect me?” “I thought I'd have to protect him from you.”
He and a new hire spent down time comparing their experiences in Viet Nam. I thought that their talks could help them both, but my date became angry, unpredictable, and preferred to go to lunch and get a drink after work with his new friend. My date and I went to a party near my house where we both had a few drinks. We walked there and back. In my living room, late that night, he asked me how my self-defense class was going. I showed him a move that I'd learned the previous Sunday: how to block the hold of a man reaching for my neck. One second I was raising my hands. The next, I was on my back with him kneeling on my chest, his forearm across my throat. His eyes stared up at something long ago. I froze. I could see my antique clock on the wall from the corner of my eye. For over forty minutes, he pinned me down, whispering to his teammates on a covert mission on which some of them died. He came back mentally to my little bungalow and threw himself off me. “Are you okay?” “Yes.” “What did I do?” “You dropped me to the floor and pinned me down.” I rubbed my neck. “By the throat.” “How long?” “Forty minutes.” “You froze.” It wasn't a question. “Yeah.” I moved my head around. My neck made popping noises. “I was back in Viet Nam. I would have killed you if you moved.” We made a pact that night. I would stop demonstrating my useless self-defense class moves. He would stop drinking and cut down on the time he spent reliving the war with his new buddy.
The Utah state patrol and/or county sheriffs set up a stop and search. They spotted the forceps and searched the van where they found a small amount of marijuana. A surprise to the rest of us. My guy had an antique Colt pistol in his backpack, just in case we ran into outlaws on the river. We didn't know that. He declared it to the police before they found it. The police confiscated the gun which had belonged to his grandfather. We could have paid the fine then and there, but since they'd taken the gun, and my guy and I could lose our jobs if we were found guilty, we decided to fight the charges. We drove to one town to get all the bureaucratic paperwork out of the way and another town to see the judge about setting a court date (more bureaucracy). At each new obstruction, I told everyone about the antique colt pistol and asked how we could get it back. We were directed to one office after another, in various towns, and then back to the stop and search party, only to find the officer who'd confiscated the gun had gone to the first town we'd gone to. The sergeant at the desk recognized us when we came back, gave the pistol to my guy, and pointed at me. “If you hadn't told so many people about this Colt, you never would have seen it again.” And the drug charges? JR pleaded guilty and paid a fine. The charges against the rest of us: dropped. |
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This story was featured in the May 2024 Newsletter.
Have you had strange things happen during or after gigs?
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Times I Didn't Die: Gigs in Bars1. Late night at in an Irish restaurant and bar on St. Patrick's day, the owner asked the leader of the band to continue playing because there were a lot of young men still buying booze. I stayed with him. The rest of the band packed up and went home. Two groups of angry young men yelled and shoved. The band leader, a tall muscular man with a commanding voice, used the microphone to order them to “calm down” and “break it up.” The young men ignored him. A short scrawny guy yelled and shook his fist at three or four brawny guys who looked like brothers. They laughed and pushed him away. The smaller man came back fired up, poking a finger into the closest muscular chest, yelling something. I parked my bass, climbed down from the stage, and waded into the melee toward the scrawny guy. Young men around me were pushing and shoving, but separated and apologized when they bumped into me. “Excuse me” opened a path through the crowd. I reached the center of the melee, faced the scrawny guy, and opened my arms. “You need a hug.” He backed away. “No, I don't.” “Yeah, you need a hug.” I walked toward him with outstretched arms. He backed up again. The guys behind him cleared the way. Without touching him, I steered him backward, through the crowd to the door and out into the parking lot. He stumbled off the curb backward. I grabbed him to keep him from falling. His friends followed us out. They shoved him into the back seat of a car and drove away. I came back to the stage. The leader of the band yelled at me, off-mic. “You could have been hurt. What were you thinking?” “The guy needed a hug. And the boys were too polite to hit a lady.”
I loved the food at one restaurant on the fringe of a new housing development out in the country. The owner fed us dinner before the gig. My blood sugar drops and my brain goes wonky if I don't eat regularly. The usual staff knew to save something with carbs for me, after the gig. One St. Patricks Day, we played longer than usual because the audience was still listening and buying drinks. An hour after our usual end time, the owner told us we could quit. I headed for the kitchen, looking for my dessert. The kitchen staff had cleaned up and gone home. No dessert. Not even an apple. I came out to find the band leader talking with a county deputy sheriff. Residents in the new high-density Still craving carbs, I assumed a deputy sheriff would know what was open at that hour. “Could you tell me where I could get a donut?” My words echoed in the sudden silence. The deputy's face reddened and his eyes narrowed to slits. Wide-eyed and dizzy, I waited for his answer. After what seemed like a week, he turned and walked away. The band leader punched my arm. “You asked a cop where you could get a donut? Are you crazy?” “No, I'm hungry. Why did you punch me?” “If you didn't look so innocent, I think that deputy would have punched you a lot harder.”
There is safety in being in a band on stage, although I have heard about bars in which the performers play behind a chicken wire net, to protect them from airborne beer bottles and ashtrays. Until that night, I'd never seen a wire net. That night, I was on the wrong side of it. But, the crowd was calm and respectful, enjoying their drinks and dancing to the tunes. The music was good. A couple of men asked me to dance. We laughed. I had a good time but didn't intend to stay too late—the drive home was long, and the road out of the hollow twisted around tight curves and steep drop-offs that had no guard rails or reflectors. After a couple of dances, one of the locals told me, “You're going to stay with me tonight.” “I have to go home. I have dogs waiting to be fed and work to do. And I don't have a change of clothes.” “No. You are going to be my wife. You don't need clothes, or pets, or books, or a car. Or any reason to ever leave my house. Or to talk.” We danced to each song, and he refused to let go of my wrist. The more he drank, the tighter his grip. He tried to drag me into the men's room, but a couple of other guys stopped him. As soon as the door shut, one guy asked, “Where's your car?” “Out back.” “We're gonna make sure you get in. Then you get out of here and never come back.” The bruises on my wrist told me they weren't joking. They led me down a narrow hall, through the kitchen, and out the back door to my car. I started the car, locked the doors, and backed out of my tight parking space. My two heroes wrestled with the crazy guy at the back door. I floored the gas pedal and never looked back. |
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Have you had premonitions about dying? | Times I Didn't Die: More DreamsI lost my corporate job due a year after 9/11. Web work and music saved me. I played music in different bands, in a variety of venues: Renaissance Festivals, Victorian Dances, music society events, on a cruise ship, on stages at outdoor concerts and music festivals, in recording studios and bars. A lot of bars. Too many bars, too late at night, too far from home. 1. I was driving home alone from a gig in a bar on a long straight stretch of empty rural highway, doing about 80-85 miles per hour. My eyes hurt. I closed them. A voice said, “Open your eyes.” There was no one else in my car. “My eyes hurt.” Was I talking to a ghost? I was okay with that. “Sandy, open your eyes now.” “No. They hurt.” Was I arguing with a figment of my imagination? Ghost/figment was getting on my nerves. “If you open your eyes, I'll give you a present.” “What present?” Yeah, I was negotiating with something that was trying to save my life. “Tomorrow.” “You won't tell me until tomorrow?” And I was losing the negotiation. “Tomorrow. You'll get it tomorrow.” I opened my eyes and swerved in time to keep my car from running off the road in the curve at the end of the long straight. I didn't run up the embankment and get stuck on the railroad tracks. Or roll my car over back onto the highway. I got another tomorrow. And thousands since then. My housemate told me about guardian angels and how to communicate with them. A friend of mine told me that I have at least four guardian angels—she saw them behind me. Other friends asked me to lend them an angel or two. I told a friend who'd lived in the area for many years about the voice that saved my life. He told me stories about that particular curve in the road being a source of strange stories, some involving wagons, cars or trains. The strangest was about an armored truck that ran off the road and rolled over in a blizzard at the place where I almost crashed. Boxes of coins spilled out on the road and in the ditch. The men climbed their way out out of the drifts and to the nearest house. They woke first thing in the morning and shoveled their way back to their truck. The coins were gone.
It was late at night. I went to get drinks from the refrigerator in the south store. When I walked through the middle store, someone looked at me through the front glass door and shot me through the glass. I left my bleeding body on the floor and hovered against the high ceiling, looking down on my friends and co-workers standing around my body. I didn't see lights or angels. I didn't see anything else until I opened my eyes the next morning. A musician friend of my wanted to set up a non-profit space for artists and musicians. I offered to help him—until I drove past the space he'd purchased: three old store fronts with glass doors in an old part of Denver, facing east. The rooms where I'd been in my dream, when I was shot and died. I helped him with web work and fund raisers. But I couldn't go into the space until it was finished. I went to one concert, where he performed. I took photos and posted them on my web site, but I never went back again. |
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Read and see more about Savoir Faire in McCavity, A Real-life Mystery Cat
Have you had an unusual pet? | Times I Didn't Die: Pets1. My husband and I got a puppy from our neighbor, the runt of her litter. Our eighteen pound tuxedo cat, McCavity the Mystery Cat, raised her. We named her when she fell off a step and landed on her head in her water dish. We said, “Savoir Faire.” Sarcasm. McCavity rescued a kitten who could stretch out on the palm of my hand. Faire was half English Setter. Her father was a German Shepherd Husky mix. Faire looked more like her mother and had a gentle mouth. She weighed thirty-five pounds and played fetch the kitty. My husband and I moved to be closer to his job in Denver. I was alone during the day. Someone knocked on the door. I opened it to find a strange man holding the storm door open, one foot on the step, ready to launch himself into my house. I tried to close the door, but he held it open. Faire dashed around me and growled. Her head was the height of his knee. But she growled like she meant it, channeling her father. My would-be intruder backed up and slammed the storm door shut, yelling something. I closed and locked the door. Faire got treats. 2. For Valentines Day, my husband bought me a baby Colombian Rainbow Boa Constrictor. Once a month, we put a mouse in his terrarium, and most of the time, he caught it. One month, he missed so many times, the mouse raced around, sat up in a Years later, the snake reached his full length, about 5-6'. Other than feeding and shedding, he was not an active pet. We called him Walter, after an Old English Sheepdog in an episode of Bonanza, in which the dog laid on his side and never moved. When we got divorced, Faire moved to a house with my ex-husband. Walter, McCavity, and I moved into a townhouse. As a joke, someone gave me a “Beware of Snake” sign, which I put in the front window. A friend asked how I would defend myself if someone broke in. “I'd grab McCavity and throw him at the intruder: I don't cut his nails, and he's eighteen pounds of muscle. He'd shred an intruder.” I got my hair permed. Walter loved to crawl around on my head, when I let him out of his cage. He'd hook the tip of his tail under my jaw and explore my curls. One day, someone knocked on the door. Again, I opened it to find a man poised to enter my house: his foot on the step. He pushed the door farther open. “You don't really have “Yes, I do.” Walter raised his head and flicked his tongue. A warm body that's not mine could be food. Until he bit it, he didn't know how big it was. His head shot toward the intruder's nose. That man recoiled, stumbled off the step, and grabbed the doorknob to keep his balance. The door slammed shut, and he ran away. |
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Times I Didn't Die: Photographs1. Family Trip, Florence Italy, Aug 1984 We were first through the door to the Uffizi Galleria. Knowing people will follow one another up, I headed up the stairs toward “The Birth of Venus” (aka Venus on the Half-Shell). It had just come back from being cleaned and restored. And I had it all to myself, sitting on a bench, memorizing every detail, until the crowd made it up to the top floor and pushed in front of me. I wandered around that floor and found a small room off to one side. It was filled with portraits, mostly of men, all by Rembrandt. My tour of the top floor led me to an open window. I leaned out and spied the far half of the Ponte Vecchio (which crossed the Rio Arno), the oldest bridge in the city. I leaned out the window to get the best shot: a view of the full bridge in the rain. The old building had thick walls, measured in feet, not inches. I wiggled forward on my stomach. The outside wall ran down into the river. Which I could see when I glanced down. And, someone holding a bright yellow umbrella walked under an arch. My sister grabbed the waistband of my jeans and pulled me back in. Or tried to. “Let go. I have to get this shot.” I fumbled with my camera. “You're going to die.” “I'm fine.” I braced my elbows down the side of the building, leaning further out, and caught one shot before the yellow umbrella disappeared into the darkness. And realized how far out I was leaning. My sister pulled me back in.
Same camping trip as the Hellgate fire, driving on a rutted dirt road, looking for a camping spot. We passed a herd of mountain goats. My friend stopped and lit his pipe. I grabbed my camera and the long-distance lens. Wearing sandals and cut-off jeans, I pushed through the brush and eased down the I didn't notice where they went after they crossed the gorge. I stopped shooting when all the goats crossed the ravine. I was surrounded by goats. The young ones butted each other; the older goats checked me out. They'd walked up the path I was on—their path—under my camera lens. I tried to turn around on the slope. Each quarter-inch I shifted, I slid down another inch or two. Some of I smelled smoke. My friend, puffing on his pipe and wearing hiking boots, had crept down the slope toward me. He held out his hand. I just had to push between two goats to reach it. One bit my back pocket. It probably smelled crumbs from a granola bar. I leaned toward my friend and stretched. He grabbed my wrist just as the goat let go of my pocket. One not-so-gentle push from the disappointed goat, and I slid through the brush, pulled up by my friend. |
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Have you had a close call in a raft or boat? | Times I Didn't Die: Rafting1. JR was 6'6” tall. I met him when I helped a friend move. He was carrying a refrigerator down a flight of stairs, holding it under one arm. JR's annual July 4th weekend party near Penrose CO. He invited me to run the lower Arkansas River. I'd been on one raft trip and couldn't wait to do more. Signs warned rafters to stay out of the flood-stage water. JR asked if we still wanted to go. Three of us said, “Yes.” I wanted to be in the front of the raft. JR put me in the middle of the raft, the safest place. Big John and Moose rode up front, to help hold the nose down. The two aptly-named men blocked my view. We hit a huge wave. The front end flipped up and tossed the two men into the center of the raft. On top of me. A forearm larger than my thigh came at me. Daylight disappeared. Red and yellow pain flashed in my eyes. And brain. I couldn't breathe. JR kept the raft off the boulders and walls of the canyon. Moose and Big John clawed their way to the front of the raft. One man apologized for hitting me. As if he could have prevented it. A bandana soaked in snow-melt water on my broken nose helped keep the swelling down. And waves washed off my blood.
JR set up his oar boat. We loaded it with a cooler, tarps to throw on the ground for a picnic lunch, sun screen, hats, and—just in case—plastic raincoats and ponchos. No rubber boots to wade through the flooded field. Just tennis shoes. The high fast water through the canyon kept JR busy. But, he pulled over when people on a bank in the canyon yelled and waved. A friend of theirs had crashed his kayak in a curve down river and was injured. They hoped JR could rescue him. Other rafts queued up in case JR couldn't do it. JR tried, but the turn was too tight, and the current swept us away. The canyon widened. We pulled over to a high dry spot for lunch. Clouds rolled in. A few raindrops fell. We loaded up and headed for State Bridge, hoping for a brief storm, a warm meal, and a colorful sunset. Lightning and thunder. We put on raincoats and ponchos. The sky filled with thick dark clouds. Light rain became a torrent. We huddled under layers of tarps while lightning struck the water around us. We peeked out to spot a familiar building, hoping we wouldn't find ourselves miles past the takeout. Or get struck by lightning loading out.
“No. Why?” “Record high water. It's the first time we could raft it from the Douglas County Line to North Denver.” “I'm in.” No portaging a raft to avoid dams that tore up rubber rafts going over them. We set out Saturday morning, and floated through Littleton and Englewood. JR pulled into an eddy and threw a loop around a tree trunk. “You want to get out now?” “Why?” “Because dead dog dam is right up there. And a guy drowned trying to go over it two days ago. I'll pick “No.” Compared to our previous raft trips, running dams was child's play. Past the dams, JR let me steer to the takeout. He lazed in the boat smoking a cigar.
“That's the worst place to be if I miss the chute. You'll be thrown out of the raft.” “Don't miss the chute.” He missed the chute. The current dragged us over the waterfall down into a hole. The raft folded like a taco. Water swirled back into the hole, pushing the water-logged boat back into the waterfall. My friend threw himself forward to put more weight on the front of the raft, yelling, "High side." His order to join him. Still clutching the back of his chair, I swung around, and an oar slammed into my head. I fell into the seat and grabbed the oars to keep them from swinging around again. And pulled on them. A reflex. It helped move the raft forward. I pulled harder, and the raft made it up and out of the hole. I steered us to the river bank. My head throbbed. Details were fuzzy. My boyfriend jumped out, tied up the boat, and climbed up a rock to pose. I stood up. Dizzy. One finger hurt. Blood dripped into the water. Our friends floated by and yelled, "Are you okay?" My friend waved. "We’re good.” "Sandy, are you okay?” A voice from the river. "I think I broke a fingernail." My boyfriend climbed back down to the boat. “You 'broke a fingernail?' That's the epitome of cool.” I showed him my finger (the one missing a fingernail) and the lump on the side of my head. He showed me his first aid skills. If I had been in my “safe place” in the front of the boat when we went over the falls, I would have fallen out, and the boat would have landed on me. PS. My camera was undamaged. And I didn't get any pictures. |
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Have you had a close call with a snake? | Times I Didn't Die: Snakes1. Missoula MT Hellgate Canyon, east of Missoula MT, was burning out of control less than a mile away, and the message on the billboard was too ironic to pass by. Wearing cutoffs, a t-shirt, and flip flops, I trotted down a tire track in a field. As I adjusted the f-stop, light, and focus on my all-manual camera, I heard a rustling in the weeds behind me. It sounded like a mouse fussing with a piece of cellophane, perhaps from a package of cigarettes. Because that was a more comfortable mental image than the alternative. I didn't turn around. Just snapped the photo and got out of there. When I got back to the car, I told my friend about the rustling noise. “It was a rattlesnake. The fire's driving critters into town. You probably shoulda gotten out of there pronto.” “I did. Right after I got the shot.” One shot. Not tack-sharp.
On a group raft trip, some kayakers tromping through the forest cornered a rattlesnake and were poking it with sticks. The full-grown rattler had killed a large white rat, and wanted to eat, but it felt threatened. It curled up, shaking its rattle, mouth open, poised to strike. I had my camera bag slung over my shoulder. Pissed off at the treatment of the rattler by the behavior of the others, I squatted down and spoke to the snake. It stared at me, still in strike position, tongue flickering. Bored and/or annoyed, the others left. Moving as little as possible, I changed the lens on my camera. I couldn't change the high film speed or the dim light under the thick trees. And, the snake had killed the rat in an ancient cabin, beyond the reach of whatever sunlight leaked in through the doorway. My camera made a clicking noise. The snake's head shot up each time I shot a picture. After a few clicks—and some soothing words—the snake decided to eat the rat. When snakes swallow, they are defenseless. They aren't much better at defending themselves after they've swallowed their prey whole; they hide while they ingest their pray. I finished a roll of film about the time the rat's tail disappeared through the snake's teeth. Like a child slurping up one spaghetti noodle. The snake raised its head and stared at me. Then it turned and squeezed through a hole in the back wall of the cabin. I photographed the entire consumption of a rat by a rattlesnake from two feet away. But the shots were too grainy to print. |
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Have you had a scary experience in a strange town?
The Sinister Umbrella takes place in St. Louis, MO The main character can see the Gateway Arch and LaCledes Landing from her window. |
Times I Didn't Die: St. Louis, Missouri1. My company sent me to a computer training class in St. Louis for two weeks. The class was in a tech center with corporate complexes on large areas of lawns, hills and trees. The only motel “within walking distance” was a La Quinta with a Denny's restaurant. Because I could walk to class (about a mile away), the company wouldn't pay for a rental car. After five days of meals at Denny's, food in the vending machine outside the classroom looked better. By Saturday morning, I wanted to see the Gateway Arch and eat in good restaurants. I rode the free shuttle to the airport and bought a bus ticket to Downtown. Armed with a tourist map of the city, I plopped down on the seat closest to the door for the view out the front and side windows. As we drove, I kept track on the map and read the street signs from the side window, made semi-opaque from chips and scratches. The bus filled up, standing room only, but I focused on the scenery. Something hissed. I looked around. A small older black woman sat next to me, pointing an umbrella with a sharply-honed tip at the standing people glaring at me. I hunched my shoulders and thought about getting off the bus. No. That would be more dangerous than staying on. I stared out the side window until we drove through an area of warehouses and empty streets and parking lots. I turned to see the Arch many blocks away. The now-almost-empty bus stopped at a corner. I stood up and nodded at the woman with the umbrella, “Thank you.” She glared at me. “You find another way to go home, white girl.” I took refuge in the Ladies room until the shaking stopped. I wiped the last tears away and walked to Lacledes Landing. After surviving the bus and the Arch, walking alone in the empty lots and spooky warehouses was a piece of cake. LaCledes Landing was worth it. I got lunch in a little cafe, gazed at handcrafted and tourist items in shops, and talked to a young man working in one of the shops. I told him about my bus ride and how I wanted to go to the big park and rent a bike the next day. He shook his head. “Don't go to that park. You were lucky to survive the bus ride.” He rang up my small purchase, a souvenir to bring back for a friend. “I get off work at nine. I'll drive you back to your motel. Go to this club.” He pointed to a building on my map. “The food and music are great. I'll meet you there.” Around 10 pm, I wondered if he would show up. He did, in time to rescue me from a drunk who had spilled beer on my pale blue suede jacket. We had dinner and listened to the band. My new friend suggested we walk out over the Mississippi River on the Eads Bridge (a 19th century steel truss bridge). I agreed until I saw it. “I'm afraid of heights.” I told him about the Arch and the helicopter. “They're not supposed to fly under the Arch. It's illegal. Try the bridge. It's not as high and it's a great view.” I trusted him. He was right. Climbing up wasn't a problem. I felt safe to walk out over the water. The view of the river and the lights of the city was magical. “Why aren't you afraid of this height?” “Because it's over water.” I never said my fears were rational. The stairs down, over land, were a challenge. He offered to hold my hand, but both fists were clenched on the handrail. We walked the empty streets of Lacledes Landing back to his car. On the way to my motel, a significant drive northwest, he told me about his fiance and their plan to camp in the Rocky Mountains for their honeymoon. He mentioned that he lived in a town in Illinois, across the Mississippi River in the opposite direction, a farther distance from Lacledes Landing than my motel. He dropped me off at the front door of the LaQuinta. “I wish I could do something to thank you.” “You can. Send me lots of information about camping in Colorado.” He gave me his name and address. I sent him a box of all the material I could get from the tourist board and various stores that sold hiking and camping gear. I told my friends back home about my adventure. They convinced me I was lucky my good samaritan was not a serial rapist-killer.
I walked out of the restricted area to a paved drive. I grew up knowing mountains are West. Where are they when you really need them? Using the sign with the street number to find my location on my map, and my memory of the way I'd gotten there, I plotted an alternate way back to the motel. Two armed security guards caught me. The tall older man unfolded from the security car. “What are you doing here?” He was perfectly cast: short hair, narrow eyes, permanent scowl, and a large gun on one hip. Me, wearing cut-off jeans, a t-shirt with flowers, running shoes, and a camera hanging from my neck: “Taking a computer class.” I smiled. “No. What were you doing on property with signs that say, 'No Trespassing'?” “I was walking on the grass, following the stream, and didn't see a sign until that one.” I pointed to the offending sign. “I didn't even see a building.” The two men looked at each other. Tall man: “We could call the police and have you arrested.” “Why not? I almost started a race riot on the bus yesterday. And I had to hitchhike back from LaClede's Landing late last night.” With encouragement, I told them about the bus ride (stares and shaking heads), the helicopter under the Gateway Arch (“It's illegal.” “You saw that?”), and my ride at midnight with a total stranger (“You didn't know that guy. You coulda been killed.” “Where are you from?”). “Denver, Colorado.” Hanging my head as if my home town was something to be ashamed of. “We're gonna let you go.” The tall man returned to the car to call someone. The other smiled and whispered. “We watched you on the cameras. We knew you weren't a spy.” “What is this place?” Duh. No spy career for me. He rolled his eyes. “I can't tell you that. Just stay on the roads. Okay?” |
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If you want a micro-memoir delivered to your email once a month, Have you had an unusual dreams that felt real? | Times I Didn't Die: The Dog DreamDuring a bout of bronchitis (around 2015), I was in bed on an oxygen machine day and night for 5-6 weeks. I stood barefoot on a rough wood deck in back of a cabin. The sun shone in a clear sky. I was young, thin, healthy again. Thick brown hair hung down to my waist. “I have eight dogs running loose in the forest.” A man stood next to me. Tall, lean, tan, dark hair, dark eyes. “You round them up. I'll fix the fence.” I stepped down into lush grass, still dewy, and walked around the cabin. The fence, an orange construction fence, lay flat in the grass. I stepped over it and walked to the front yard, which was shaded by tall pines. The lower branches on the pines grew above my head. Birds twittered in the trees. Three of my dogs, Faire, Dove, and Casey, saw me and raced to me. I knelt and held them in my arms. Sun-warmed fur, smelling like pine trees, tickled my cheeks, neck, and arms. They licked my face. They were young and healthy again. I heard a waterfall from behind some bushes. Two more dogs, Zapp and Spirit, ran out of the bushes and stopped when they saw me. Zapp bounced up and down, like he used to do on my bed. I smiled at them. They wagged their tails and disappeared into the bushes. I stood up. And woke in my bed, drenched in sweat. The fever broke. But the dream felt real—a full-sensory experience with no time or space gaps, as if I'd crossed over and come back. No shining light. No angels. No out-of-body feeling. Just five dogs waiting for me. Faire was the oldest, raised by McCavity the Mystery Cat. She died in 1988. Zapp was the last to die, in 2012. I've had two or three dogs at a time for the last 31 years. Faire was the only puppy I adopted since I was an adult. All my dogs since her have been older rescues or fosters from breeders. Sometimes, rescue dogs come bonded to other people. In my dream, I said, “I have eight dogs ….” Crash (d. 2021) and Leo (d. 2023) are numbers six and seven. I told them bedtime stories about the five dogs they would meet when it was time for them to cross over. Now I am dogless. Another dog will find me. And that dog will need a companion. One of them will be the eighth dog. |
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This story was featured in the August 2024 Newsletter.
If you want a micro-memoir delivered to your email once a month,
Have you had any close calls? |
Times I Didn't Die: Two Firsts (and Lasts)1. Landing in Salt Lake City A training trip took me to Orange County, south of Los Angeles. My company booked me on a flight that stopped in Salt Lake City. I scored a window seat one row in front of the wing, on the left side of the plane. The air traffic controllers were on strike. We had no trouble leaving Denver. The plane lined up with the runway in Salt Lake City, dropped, and slowed. The nose of the plane jumped up. The engine roared. The sudden ascent threw me into the back edge of my seat. Near the window. The ground dropped away. We veered to the right. Still climbing, the plane pivoted to the left. A plane raced down the runway. The one we'd just left. Directly below me. Going the opposite direction. For one second. Our wing tip missed the other plane. We leveled out. The pilot sounded casual. Like he did this every day. “I'm sorry about that. We're going to take a loop around and try this again. I hope we'll have a clear runway this time.” A new man's voice, partially drowned out by static, yelled, “unauthorized take-off,” “charges to revoke,” and “pilot's license.” Odd way to treat a pilot who just saved all the lives on the two planes.
We'd stayed friends. I was racing my Triumph TR-7 in autocross events (one car at a time) in parking lots and on unused airport runways in Denver and along the Front Range. I'd worked group races as a volunteer, but I'd never raced with other drivers. I signed up for drivers' school, then learned that I couldn't bring my TR-7. The teacher wanted us to use sedans. My ex offered to lend me his Mazda. I had major surgery a week or so before the drivers' school. I didn't think that mattered; I wasn't going to do anything dangerous. My ex told me about the last part of the class, a timed ten-lap “race.” We made a bet: whoever got the higher lap time would take the other out to dinner, to a place chosen by the winner. I wanted to go to San Francisco. We swapped cars, and I drove to Pueblo, where there was a road course with twists and turns (right and left) and hills and dips. There was one other student, a man. We got lectures about steering, braking, turning, going into and coming out of curves, and safety: what to do if you roll a car or get in a crash. We walked around the course, got to ride and drive with the teacher, and then drive ten laps. Solo. The teacher spaced our cars out, so we had the road to ourselves, and held up a chalkboard with our times after each lap. I told the instructor about the bet. I wasn't winning—yet—but I was close and getting closer on each lap. There was a tricky S-turn into and out of a dip, and I was sure I could do that double turn flat out. Wahoo! I did! But not the turn after that. The Mazda tripped and fell over, on its side. I braced myself by pushing my forearm against the ground, to keep from ripping out my stitches. I pulled my hand back in when the car bounced. But, my hand left a dent in the roof. I followed the crash instructions to the letter. I turned the key off to avoid a fire, unclipped my seatbelt, fell down to pavement through the open driver's window, stood up to the open window on the up side, climbed out using one arm, and sat on the side of the car, feet dangling down on what had been the bottom of the car, cradling my injured arm, waiting like a damsel in distress. I missed the last two steps in the safety protocol: jump down and run away. But the ground looked really far. And I had only one usable hand. The instructor and my classmate helped me down and pushed the car back onto its wheels. They popped the hood, checked for spills and fire (none), filled the two flat tires with air, ripped off the dangling parts of the mirror, told me to start the car, and gave me the instructions to find the nearest hospital. I refused a plaster cast on my wrist and hand. With a plastic cast and thick wad of Ace bandages, I could free the tips of my thumb and index finger to hold the steering wheel—just long enough to shift gears on the side streets. No problem on I 25. I hit the speed limit and didn't slow down until I pulled off the highway, a few blocks from the parking lot, and parked next to my TR-7. My ex was waiting for me in his office. I came in with my wrapped hand down behind me and told him I'd crashed his car. He listened to my story and apology. “Were you hurt?” I held up my bad hand. “Nothing broken.” His second question: “What were your lap times?” He still bought me dinner. But not in San Francisco. I bought him two new tires and a mirror. He told me that he'd scrubbed off a lot of tread on the tires when he took the class; that's why they peeled off the rims in the next turn. I couldn't have beaten his time. He left my hand dent in the roof. I used to have a photo of that dent, but it disappeared. The only photo I have of me with his Mazda is when I won First Place in an autocross in Longmont, Colorado, June, 1979. |
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Have you had any close calls walking alone at night? | Times I Didn't Die: Walking at Night (Before Cell Phones)1. My second training trip to St. Louis lasted five days. I thought I could stay out of trouble. One of my classmates was a woman from Toronto whose company, like mine, didn't provide her with a car or money for taxis. Our choice was one restaurant at the motel or vending machines. We decided to walk to a “real” restaurant for dinner. In those days, pedestrian safety was not a visible priority in that part of St. Louis. Busy streets had no sidewalks. Residential neighborhoods had one or two ways in and out to reduce traffic, and side streets did not connect to other neighborhoods. The lack of street lights discouraged foot traffic. We had to cross a busy highway. The only traffic light on our way to the restaurant was close to the restaurant. Walking there, we faced traffic. Going back, we crossed with the light and walked the same direction as traffic, on a gravel shoulder next to the paved road. Cars raced by. As we approached an exit ramp to a road below, an old large sedan slowed as it passed us. The driver, a man, turned to look at us. He slowed to a crawl and stopped, blocking our access to a concrete curb across the bridge. One misstep squeezing past the car and we'd slide down the steep slope to the ramp and road below. Or we could walk out in traffic to get around the car. The driver stared at us through the back window. I shivered, in spite of the St. Louis heat. A few feet from the ramp, I stopped walking. My new friend continued her story about a strange computer glitch she'd solved. At the end of her story, she looked around. “Why are we stopped here?” “That guy in the car checked us out and stopped. He cut off our access to the bridge. We either have to squeeze through single file to get to the bridge or walk in traffic to get around him.” “Are you worried about getting dirty if you walk too close to his car?” I pointed to the car. A car racing up behind us lit up the interior of the car that had stopped. “Watch the “Should we go down the ramp and cross the street down there?” “There's no traffic light to cross the street down there. I'm hoping he'll drive away. Let's stare at him.” After several minutes, which seemed like hours, the parked car's back-up lights lit up. Cars drove past us and turned down the ramp, honking at the driver who tried to back toward them. The driver gave up and drove away. When the traffic cleared, we crossed the bridge and made it back to our motel.
One late night, I walked across the street toward the gallery and heard male voices behind me. Two men headed my way. I speed-walked through the gallery and tunnel. The voices behind me grew too loud too soon. The parking level around me was empty. I could see my car, but I couldn't race there in the high-heels my company dress-code required. I stood with my back against a large concrete support post facing the tunnel, pulled my key ring from my purse, and made a fist with the keys sticking out. The two men stopped at the mouth of the tunnel. One whispered something. The other mumbled. Showdown at the parking garage. Maybe they were good guys, but why had they run after me? If they were just headed for their car, why didn't they say something and/or walk away? I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths. After what seemed like an hour, they turned and disappeared in the tunnel. Their voices faded. I waited until I was sure they weren't coming back. And my knees stopped shaking. Note to self: bring tennis shoes to wear at night.
I led my date across the street. The group of men crossed, too. Ahead was a large square fountain. We speed walked to the far end of the fountain and stopped. I turned to watch the group of men approach. They stopped at the opposite end of the fountain and stared back. My date interrupted his story. “Why are we stopped?” “Those guys have been following us since we left the restaurant.” “Oh. What do we do now?” “We wait.” “For what?” I tilted my head at the group of men. “For them to make the next move.” Showdown at the fountain. We stood up taller and straightened our shoulders. Stone-faced. Resolute. Well, I was. The men huddled. Shaking heads outvoted the shaking fists. They turned and retraced their footsteps to the nearest cross street and disappeared. |
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